Since no one else has noted it: they show rail lines and only rail. No roads on those maps. This includes some quite obscure ones like the railway between Labrador and Sept-Iles, Quebec. (It has almost no traffic and it serves a small town and a mine and it's not connected to the rest of the North American system.) Similarly they depict sections of rail in Canada that were out of service many years before this map was published. So they're quite out of date. To not show that Canada is linked by rail with the USA at Detroit is a definite oversight, too.
Seeing through the lens of railroads is probably an artifact of both ideology and the economic reality in North Korea. And maybe also the implicitly military purpose of these maps.
I thought that too, but the map for the UK is very weird - there is no direct connection between what looks like Birmingham and what looks like Manchester or anywhere in the North West of England. So, no West Coast Main Line? Instead they have the rail line veering off towards the peak district.
I don't know whether they're decades out of date or just plain wrong - the West Coast Main Line was "opened between 1837 and 1881" according to Wikipedia.
Hmm, if those red lines are meant to be rail lines than someone's definitely made some errors. E.g. the Europe map shows a red line in Iceland, perhaps between Reykjavík and Akureyri. But there's no railway between Reykjavík and Akureyri and in fact there's no rail in Iceland at all.
I just assumed the red lines were "major routes" of some sort, maybe rail, maybe roads.
There's the San Bernardino Museum located at the train station in SB. Its next to the ATSF yards, so its sort of a combined SB and ATSF museum. On the wall there was a map of the US with all sorts of lines on it.
Under closer scrutiny, all of the lines were railroads, and not highways. In fact, (I don't think) there were no highways at all. And it was all railroads, not just ATSF. I don't recall the date on the map.
Just a fascinating "other view" of the world to look at the US through that lens.
For Australia, at least, the rail lines are shown in red and major roads are shown in maroon. The lines for the roads are mostly thinner than for the rail, but not consistently so. At first glance, it's difficult to determine which lines are road and rail, unless you already know which is which.
"More specifically, it is an electronic edition published on CD in the first decade of the 2000s"
So no telling when the data was actually gathered/acquired before being "frozen" for publication.
Also, if this is on something released to the NK public, then I'd imagine they are highly sanitized to make the rest of the world less impressive to those NK citizens that are allowed access to it. I'd strongly hope they provide their military better information, yet we know militaries are often lied to by their command.
My grandfather built that railway in a supervisor capacity in Labrador. My dad was born in sept illes because of it. It was once very important but now a footnote. It moved iron ore in the 60s / 70s
My small-town public library growing up had a great resource that I did not appreciate at the time: an English translation of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia[0].
I really wish I had spent time with it. If nothing else it would have given me some questions to ask my history teachers.
Wow! I would have been absolutely fascinated by this when I was a kid.
I remember once wandering around my college library and finding the book “The Soviet Economy Through the Year 2000.” This occurred during the current millennium.
As a native Korean, every time I see something related to Korea, I am just amazed how much passion these people have. I briefly remember seeing a detailed map of the whole Korean peninsula from the elementary school, I think. I appreciate this finding!
North Korea is kind of invisible if you live in South Korea. You may see some news that they launched some rockets and did some military actions. People are so used to these news that they don't pay attention anymore. You forget about the North one and just live your life.
> According to the prevailing narrative in North Korea, the war was won by the communists and since then, the entire Korean peninsula has remained united under the rule of the Korean Workers’ Party.
This is either not true at all or the writer phrased strangely — both of the governments (South & North) recognize that the war is still on-going and they have an enemy that is controlling the other half of the peninsula that they do not control. However, both of the governments also argue that they are the only legal government that is ought to control the whole peninsula and does not recognize each other's legitimacy. For example, ROK(Republic of Korea, the government that controls the southern part of the peninsula)'s constitution writes that it's government governs the whole peninsula and it's islands. It's like how both PRC(People's Republic of China, i.e. China) and ROC(Republic of China, i.e. Taiwan) both argue that they are the only legal government over all of China (i.e. Mainland China and Taiwan combined).
> Therefore, when looking at the maps in this atlas, it should come as no surprise that Korea is always shown as one country, with no reference to the other country that exists at the southern tip of the peninsula.
It is universally agreed between the two governments (and their citizens) that a unification should happen at some point, so it is obvious that we should be using a map that covers the whole peninsula. We (as South Koreans) also learn 'our country' as the whole peninsula.
> This North Korean world map is centred on the Pacific Ocean, which gives Korea a privileged position on the global stage.
Not going to lie, sometimes it feels that some of the Westerners act like that they don't even think of the remote possibility that they might not be the center of the world…?
South Korean maps do this, China maps do this, Japanese maps do this, I'm pretty sure South East Asia countries also do this, it's a normal thing to do. There's nothing special about having the Pacific Ocean centered.
>> This North Korean world map is centred on the Pacific Ocean, which gives Korea a privileged position on the global stage.
> Not going to lie, sometimes it feels that some of the Westerners act like that they don't even think of the remote possibility that they might not be the center of the world…?
Westerner who also thought this was a strange comment and that the centering of the Korean peninsula was a totally natural decision for this atlas
> Not going to lie, sometimes it feels that some of the Westerners act like that they don't even think of the remote possibility that they might not be the center of the world…?
> South Korean maps do this, China maps do this, Japanese maps do this, I'm pretty sure South East Asia countries also do this, it's a normal thing to do. There's nothing special about having the Pacific Ocean centered.
Worth noting that florence meridian (11E) is somewhat special because centering map on it avoids cutting any major land masses. The best pacific option (148E) still needs to deal with greenland somehow. Of course Korea is quite off from 148E, so the map here ends up bit wonky (Greenland is duplicated, but Nunavut is not?).
But that's only because the conservative government that took power in South Korea took a hardline anti-unification stance and instead decided to strengthen relations with the US.
The US has a rich history of undermining unification processes. Like in 2005 when Bush Jr broke promises related to light-water reactors and the 2005 agreement (where North Korea would stop nuclear development in exchange for a non-aggression pact and relief from sanctions).
Or in March 2017 when the U.S. has dismissed a joint China-North Korea proposal where North Korea would end its nuclear weapons development in exchange for the U.S. stopping its military maneuvers with South Korea
> It is universally agreed between the two governments (and their citizens) that a unification should happen at some point, so it is obvious that we should be using a map that covers the whole peninsula. We (as South Koreans) also learn 'our country' as the whole peninsula.
When I was growing up, I learned that too. But is it still true? I don't see any unification news or mention of it from media anymore. I don't think that schools still say or can say that to students. It didn't take me a long time after I got out of the public education system to realize what propaganda schools and media were selling.
My friend was on a guided tour to North Korea, and they aware of a lot of things. For example, the population of the North and the South was somehow accurately described to the tourists as 25 and 50 million, and they don't question that fact.
All Koreans hope for it to happen, especially those who aren't part of the very upper echelons of the DPRK. Just because folks live in DPRK and are bombarded with bullshit doesn't mean they aren't very well aware of what their realities are like when compared to that of the South.
Sneakernet is (was?) alive and well in DPRK and most of the population knows they're living nowhere near the levels that those in the South are. They just are fucking terrified of them and their families being killed by hard labor if they say otherwise.
So; sure; it's /possible/, but until something big changes, it won't happen. The only reason it's not actually happening is because of the humanitarian crisis it would create. No one wants to deal w/the fallout.
It wouldn't be just a humanitarian crisis but huge economical and social problem as well - suddenly this single country would be enlarged by ~26mln people who would need to be adjusted to life in a completely different reality, and who also would need to be secured in variety of ways.
The comparison to German unification that's often bring up seems to be accurate only on the surface. There are large differences like mainly the cult of personality created by the Kim family that affects life of people in NK. It's not possible to dismantle that day by day, and surely government which would had to deal with unification would also face resistance to some degree. This society has been for over 70 years conditioned to hate, looking for the causes of their own misfortune outside in the pure evil that USA in their eyes is and its puppet state of SK.
It won't be a 0-1 change where on Monday you attend annual parade where you worship Eternal President and Dear Leader, and by Tuesday you plan your first vacations on Jeju island.
Moreover, the situation in the end of 80s in Europe is the key factor - namely the domino effect started in Poland which spread across the whole eastern bloc. There was a strong opposition building up within societies of Central-Eastern Europe demanding changes and freedom. Pretty sure that's nearly non existent in NK - there's no trigger for large changes. Even the famine in the mid-90s wasn't enough.
I don't think much of anyone thinks unification is actually possible absent some big change, and indeed neither government is truly pursuing it actively (unless "trying to destabilize and make the other government collapse" qualifies). But both are trying to be as ready as possible for unification when the opportunity presents itself (most likely, it would happen in a way alike to German reunification - that is, the government of one of the two countries becomes quite compatible with the other, because the previous form of government in it collapsed and was replaced by that of its neighbor)
At least for Japan, South Korea and China we all draw our map centered to Pacific Ocean instead of Atlantic Ocean. It is very normal practice, unless the author of this article is so Eurocentrism that they think it is an arrogation for anyone other than Europe to put them in the center.
( I lived in South Korea, and I read Korean rather well, and have traveled very extensively in South Korea. I have seen North Korean across the borders from 4 sites. )
The prevailing narrative in North Korea is utter propaganda: You cannot win a war that is still not over.
Korea should reunite as some point, when the North has a moderate leader or falls like East Germany. Until then all the wishful thinking of a deranged leader in the North, will amount to cold, cold air. The North Koreans starved millions of their own citizens. Millions, and continue to do so.
"Government Policies: The state's rigid public distribution system failed, disproportionately affecting the urban population and rural areas, while prioritizing food for the military and political elite. The government was slow to seek international aid and restricted the access of foreign relief agencies, diverting much of the aid that did arrive. "
Westerners who are not traveled, do believe themselves to be the center of the universe, its why they are almost universally known as 'Ugly Americans.' Loads of those in South Korea.
An honest map of korea would be east west centered on the China sea, looking over the plains, and with the mountains at the top... ( I am getting emotional now at the thought of the mountains... so incredibly beautiful, and... amazingly clean. ) My wish for Korean Unification is to see the Golden Mountain. (金剛山), and for the long separated families to see each other.
Rotate all these maps 90 degrees counter clockwise.
The best hope for unification for Korea... was laid out by Sec Hillary Clinton, who before she became Secretary of state, basically reiterated verbatim one of the most well thought out assessments of unification I have ever heard. Since she is not exactly a professor of Far East Studies, someone in the State Department must have written it for her, someone who had been studying it for decades, like I have.
On the map of Europe, Poland has a strange nonexistent river flowing through it. It enters the Baltic Sea more or less where the Vistula river really does. But going south it mysteriously veers east into Belarus.
I know sometimes cartographers leave nonexistent landmarks on their maps to catch plagiarists blindly copying them. Not sure if that's something similar here.
Could also be a method of identifying information leaks. Leave unique imaginary landmarks on different prints associated with certain people or groups of people that received that print.
You're right that this happens. However, if I had to guess I would say that it's due to bad information / intel.
North Korea is a closed country with limited access to information (think before the internet). On the flip side, I don't think catching copyright violators would be high on the list of concerns of the people making these maps.
Despite its age, this encyclopedia is an amazing window into North Korea - or, at least how its government saw it. I love niche media like this.
But what I'm itching for most is to see the contents of the entire CD, rather than just a few chosen excerpts. The entire encyclopedia, all the maps, anything else that may be hidden on there. I wish the author made this find open for all to see.
The North Korean place names for foreign places reflect the native pronunciations, while South Korean place names reflect English pronunciation. Syria is "suria" vs "siria" for example.
The Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh (which China claims as "South Tibet") is not shown as a part of India in the Indian map, as a hat tip to their political masters the PRC. And the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir is also shown as, I imagine, "disputed" with a dotted line.
Would you say India are their political masters if it was shown as being Indian? Even Google Maps in the US has dotted borders alongside both sides to show its disputed.
Historically, geographically, culturally, the area was always part of Tibet. It was the British that drew the McMahon Line and claimed it was part of India. China never once recognized the line. When Mao won the civil war in China they went on to conquer Tibet and again considered the whole of Tibet theirs.
India's claims to the area rest solely on the british-drawn lines. In reality, the whole of Tibet should be Tibet and allowed to either self-govern or choose which nation they should be a part of
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it disputed, with heavy border tensions and all? I'm not claiming India doesn't control it, and as a Swede I don't know much. But that's about the one thing I thought I knew about Kashmir.
Yes, heavily disputed, to the point that there are widespread campaigns on the internet to normalize the various sovereignty claims under the guise of day-to-day conversation about those locales (e.g. conspicuously referring to them as being "in India" or "in Pakistan" or "in China"). For example, see the Google maps reviews for any landmarks in the area.
What's the source of the particular singling out of Israel here? Is it because they're a US ally, or is there some other history between the countries?
It looks like a singular designation in their atlas that Israel is referred to not as an enemy, but as "nonexistent." Anti-Israeli sentiment certainly creates strange bedfellows.
Apparently at times some in Israel worked to establish relations with NK, in hopes of improving economic ties & bringing them in the fold I guess, but their efforts were thwarted by others in Israel (intelligence services) and pressure from the USA. And eventually (according to the article) it became clear that "stop selling our enemies weapons to use on us & in return we'll invest and establish ties" was a non-starter, so they gave up.
Also in an interesting reversal of tropes common in US politics, it sounds like the Isaeli government felt they were being unfairly controlled by the US, by being prevented from trying to establish friendly relations with a country the US considered off limits.
It's interesting to think of the counterfactual where Israel invested in NK, NK stopped participating in or arming attacks on Israel, and who knows what else would have happened. Oh well!
I think the Soviet Union had sided with Palestine (and also with other countries in what today is called the Global South) for most of the cold war, and this is a remnant of that.
Another effect of that is that a number of ex-soviet republics, like Poland, have recognition of Palestine "grandfathered in" even if they're part of the West and generally pro-Israel today.
Stalin sided with Israel against "those British sellouts Arabs". After his death USSR flipped for weird commie reasons, then felt betrayed by Nasser, then got disappointed by poor Arab fighting, then fell apart.
Much of the Arab World and its allies consider all of "historical Palestine" to be one nation called Palestine with a significant part of it being under occupation by a (Western) colony. This is a pretty common pattern that is not at all unique to North Korea
To be an Empire, wouldn't Israel need to defacto control _some territory_ and then be trying to expand their empire into Palestine? Or is the idea that the US is the Empire?
There is another `anti-` that I would use here instead.
> To be an Empire, wouldn't Israel need to defacto control _some territory_ and then be trying to expand their empire into Palestine?
To be an Empire in the narrow sense they would have to have a polity that is the metropolitan power and then exert control over some external territory that is distinct from the metropole, and has different rules applied to it, either through direct administration or control of the local administration. Ignoring the disputes over what exactly the meaningful status of Gaza is, the open occupation of the West Bank would seem to qualify.
Though, yes, it is definitely true that lots of people who see Israel as a facet of imperialism hold to a view where there is a single globe-spanning Empire of which the US is the metropole and Israel is simply one of the tentacles. (These people also have elaborate arguments as to why entities that might seem to meet every aspect of the definition of Empire even more than Israel-as-metropole does, particularly modern Russia, are not imperialist powers that amount to “it's only Imperialism if it comes from the US region of North America, otherwise its just sparkling international influence.”)
> These people also have elaborate arguments as to why entities that might seem to meet every aspect of the definition of Empire even more than Israel-as-metropole does, particularly modern Russia, are not imperialist powers that amount to “it's only Imperialism if it comes from the US region of North America, otherwise its just sparkling international influence.
I think this last part does disservice to the rest of your argument. It's not "the same people", it's a subset. There are people capable of holding the view that all of those are examples of modern imperialism.
Also, some of us in Latin America have a reasonable justification for animosity against the US rather than against other (also imperialist) actors: we are "America's back yard" and they have been involved in toppling, undermining, threatening or supporting our governments as they see fit. The US' relative influence far outstrips all others. Russia, China, etc, while nonzero are comparatively far lesser influence factors and therefore are downplayed in our perception of the world.
> > These people also have elaborate arguments as to why entities that might seem to meet every aspect of the definition of Empire even more than Israel-as-metropole does, particularly modern Russia, are not imperialist powers that amount to “it's only Imperialism if it comes from the US region of North America, otherwise its just sparkling international influence.
> I think this last part does disservice to the rest of your argument. It's not "the same people", it's a subset. There are people capable of holding the view that all of those are examples of modern imperialism.
I think you need to go back and reread the sentence immediately preceding the one you excerpted which provides the reference for these people, because no, the group referenced there absolutely does not include people who hold “the view that all of those are examples of modern imperialism”. For reference, that sentence is: “Though, yes, it is definitely true that lots of people who see Israel as a facet of imperialism hold to a view where there is a single globe-spanning Empire of which the US is the metropole and Israel is simply one of the tentacles.”
People who view that there are multiple imperial powers are not part of the group I am referring to in that sentence and the one you excerpted which follows it.
> Also, some of us in Latin America have a reasonable justification for animosity against the US rather than against other (also imperialist) actors
Lots of people lots of places have a reasonable justification for greater animosity toward the US, yes, but that has nothing one way or the other to do with anything I said.
> To be an Empire, wouldn't Israel need to defacto control _some territory_ and then be trying to expand their empire into Palestine?
They very openly do both those things in the West Bank.
Then you have the more extreme settler types talking about the biblical "Land of Israel" that would extend into modern Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.
But as far as I understand it, Israel is usually not the empire itself, but a bridgehead or particularly glaring example of imperialism from the West, starting with the British Empire.
> Or is the idea that the US is the Empire?
So, yes.
It were those countries that conquered those regions from the Ottoman empire and then decided among themselves to support the project of a Jewish state, against the wishes of the existing population of the region.
The whole reason Gaza (was) the most densely populated place on Earth was because its full of refugees that got pushed out by israel's violent expansion. Sometimes Palestinian's homes weren't even destroyed but simply kept by Israeli settlers. There's a common picture of a middle aged Palestinian in front of a house that just 30-50 years ago was there's but is now occupied by an israeli
> According to the prevailing narrative in North Korea, the war was won by the communists and since then, the entire Korean peninsula has remained united under the rule of the Korean Workers’ Party.
(Emphasis mine)
TIL. Now I'm really curious how maintaining this fiction works (or doesn't) in practice.
Is the second part actually true though? I can't find any sources about this, in fact the opposite seems to be true. North Korea recently changed their constitution and describe South Korea as a "hostile state" which means they officially recognize it as a "state" at least[1]. Before that they explicitly had a goal for unification in the constitution which implies (or can be implied) that there never was such a view that "the entire Korean peninsula has remained united under the rule of the Korean Workers’ Party". There is also this sentence:
>This North Korean world map is centred on the Pacific Ocean, which gives Korea a privileged position on the global stage
This is normal for asian maps, Japan does the same thing for example.
Yeah, I'm kindof skeptical. Another example I found was Kim referencing the south in a TV speech. I think their official position might be something closer to that the war was victorious by virtue of holding off the Americans and/or removing them from the area. Then the atlas doesn't show the south as a separate country because it's more of a Taiwan situation where they don't want to legitimize it as anything more than a rebellious province? At least in the early 2000s when this atlas was made. The language at the time definitely seems to emphasize that the whole peninsula is just "the nation": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_15th_North%E2%80%93South_...
I'm also curious given the rhetoric that the North Korean media has about the "puppet" state in the south. I can understand that the North Koreans want to claim sovereignty over the whole peninsula, but the article makes it sound like North Korea pretends that the ROK does not exist.
This is easy to resolve: North Korea doesn't believe it has control over the South. The article is simply wrong, a variant of the trope of "those crazy North Koreans believe all sorts of things".
They believe there's only one Korea, artificially split in two by their enemies, and that it should all be under the control of the current NK government, but they don't believe they control all of it now.
I mean, see American politics for a similar example.
The Epstein files are simultaneously a "Democrat hoax" and full of prominent Dems. The Attorney General both has them on her desk, and they don't exist.
And suddenly the unimportant records that don't exist but were also a hoax but also implicate the-other-guy are about to be made public... suddenly an "ongoing investigation" is the new excuse.
> The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between the true and the false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.
-- The origins of Totalitarianism (1951), by Hannah Arendt
> TIL. Now I'm really curious how maintaining this fiction works (or doesn't) in practice.
Very easily. There's an official account, which 'everyone'[1] knows is bullshit, but if you try to assert any logical consequences of it, you will immediately out yourself as a malcontent, and will get into serious trouble. (Because despite having all sorts of constitutional protections for your rights on paper, the executive has the power in practice to do anything it wants to you at any time, with no redress. Good luck exercising articles 67 through 79 of that constitution. If you're lucky, you'll be softly told to sit down and shut up. If you're unlucky, you'll be doing a few years in a camp.)
It's the time-tested playbook that every authoritarian regime follows, and if you're interested in learning more about how it works in practice, just turn on Fox News. It's got the first half of the double-think process down, and is working hard on getting us to the second half.
There is always a thin public justification for why rights don't apply to the enemies of the state, which is enough to convince ~half the country. (Because ~half of any country will happily accept whatever atrocities its leaders do. You can observe that sort of thing on this very forum.)
---
[1] Not actually everyone, some people really are that fucking stupid, but most know there's something off[2] about it.
[2] In this particular case, the official Atlas says they are one country, but the country's Constitution (updated last year on this very subject) says that the ROK is a foreign, hostile state. Anyone who can read or has eyes to see and ears to hear should easily be able to tell that the latter is the more accurate one.
> You can observe that sort of thing on this very forum.
remember that 1) this forum skews to a very specific sort of person, and 2) that person notwithstanding, there is an incredible, shocking large amount of bots active here, owing to the fact that the people from 1) are also AI worshipping futurists (and/or techno-fascists)
I am not a AI worshiping futurist nor a (techno-)fascist for that matter. I don't think bots are that active on such a small platform but I guess by "bots" you mean people who offer pushback on your opinions (they are a "shocking" number indeed, it seems I can hardly convince more than one person to rally my positions from time to time and I still have to pretend to be nuanced !)
I also believe that "platform is skewed against X" (generally your own opinions) are utterly useless comments. You are just pretending everyone is against you so you don't have to take criticism addressed to you seriously.
Now you can enjoy the ego boost of feeling like the virtuous online warrior against a world of techno-fascists that are ganging up on you or you can reflect and try to take into account the fact that people have different viewpoints and are mostly doing their best. I eventually chose the latter and I have to say I feel less grandiose but much better overall. Join the club, we have cookies.
In any case, North Koreans are not taught that South Korea is just like any other part of North Korea. The idea that the North Korean people and leadership are all buffoons who make the weirdest of lies possible is already Orwellian enough.
> According to the prevalent narrative in North Korea, the war was won by the communists.
Well - it depends on how one wants to call the result of the war.
I think there was not necessarily a winner; there was a stalemate/truce, with China guaranteeing North Korea to not lose, but not necessarily win either. That does not mean North Korea won, but I don't think one can necessarily say that they lost the war either.
I am fully aware of how the propaganda in North Korea works, but some articles are also heavily biased. The biggest danger to North Korea actually comes from the success model in South Korea, as well as the internet. The internet kind of nerfed Scientology (see what Ron Miscavige said and described how Scientology changed over the years, so if one of the big guys can quit, the whole business model they established decades ago, is dead and decaying). Sooner or later Kim Jong Fat will also lose out to the internet. You can not permanently cut off million of people, with the assumption they won't be able to understand how strategic lies work. It also does not work in Russia either, though Russia is of course nowhere near as isolated as North Korea right now.
> Sooner or later Kim Jong Fat will also lose out to the internet.
North Koreans do not have any Internet, save for through computers at a few government-controlled and strictly monitored libraries, as well as through illegal imported Chinese smartphones if they live near the border.
> I think there was not necessarily a winner; there was a stalemate/truce
Well yeah, basically everyone agrees on that. Everyone who's not insane anyway.
Like, North Korea invaded and made it really far, UN (mostly US) forces pushed them way the hell back, then China helped NK push that offensive back, and they ended up settling real close to the original dividing line. Pretty obvious draw as far as wars go I think.
> According to the prevalent narrative in North Korea, the war was won by the communists.
According to the North Korean govt, the Korean war was started by the South who wanted to invade North (it was not, based on extensive studies). Therefore in their view (or at least from their propaganda), the communists "won" by successfully defending their part of the peninsula.
None of what you are saying holds water. Scientology’s old business model became less effective, but the cult segued into a real-estate empire and still has several mega-wealthy members (so-called “whales”) it can milk for donations.
And North Korea could see greater internet uptake but still remain a stable dictatorship, precisely on the model of Russia where, even if the population “sees through the lies”, that doesn’t challenge the regime itself; people who dislike the regime largely simply accept it as a fact of life, and might even disapprove of those people who make the effort to challenge it.
Much of the landscape is divided into rectangular parcels, almost like a factorio layout, or something from sim city 3000, rather than natural terrain. Does anyone know the reason for this pattern?
Large scale collective farming I guess. The US' farmland in the central states was also organized by a centralized process (homestead act) leading to similar geographic patterns on a bigger scale. https://maps.app.goo.gl/idNBdXv5oKSF1oVo7
> the war was won by the communists and since then, the entire Korean peninsula has remained united under the rule of the Korean Workers’ Party.
This makes me wonder what the reasoning is, or even if they officially do, for preventing North Korean citizens from migrating south? If it's all united as one country then why would someone be prevented from moving there?
From what I understand about North Korea - simply moving within (actual) NK itself is not really on the cards for a lot of people, so they might as well claim sovereignty over the whole peninsular.
It's more than that, it's probably a ideological thing from the very top. Just like how the PRC insists that Taiwan is just another weird territory like HK or Macau.
Id think this being the 'official' political position , it would be referring to the end of hostilities when the armistice was signed.Legally there was no ceasefire/capitulation etc and i would suggest as far as the North are concerned barring outside interference they would have prevailed.
Hence the stressing of the position that they are one entity 'politically' - certainly not that 'physically' they are one untit , also why they would hold/reunification talks from time to time and family relatives exchanges between the two.
They are cognizant that there is a DMZ , and that theere exists a polity on the south that keeps sending usb filled baloons , propaganda loudspeakes blaring on the Border.
So mostly a poltical position being staked out , which is also why the maps only have Palestine and Western Sahara.Not because they are unaware of the situation insitu but geopilitically they are staking their claims.
I'm wondering what the infrastructure shown in red on the maps is. Railways? Roads? It's obviously very rough, whatever it is. I'm looking at the UK and it looks like Ipswich and Great Yarmouth (or Lowestoft) or on there, but not Norwich. It's interesting to see what is considered significant or strategic from their point of view.
From every account I’ve read, North Koreans suffer greatly, maybe not holocaust level but we’re totally fine to allow their suffering to continue unabated. If I was a North Korean I’d hope someone was coming to help me at some stage . Weird situation .
> we’re totally fine to allow their suffering to continue unabated
People aren't "fine" with it exactly, it's just that the alternative usually looks (potentially) much worse.
Regime change would mean war with North Korea, and at the very least that'd be a ton of artillery shells landing on Seoul and killing a ton of civilians at the outset of the war.
North Korea by itself would obviously be much weaker than a presumed SK+US force, but then you have to worry about China potentially getting drawn in, and now you have two nuclear superpowers fighting each other in all-out war. Nobody really wants that.
"We" are absolutely not fine with the state of things there, but there is also not much to do for these poor people, aside from some non-political volunteer help. One of the reasons is the that, as I understand it, China and NK are diplomatically close, with them having a mutual defense treaty among other things. So if you meddle in NK, you also meddle with China, and "we" don't exactly meddle with China either, even in face of their most condemned actions like the treatment of Uighur, since they are a superpower.
Another thing is that NK is very highly publicized in Western media, and people seem to have a kind of fascination with it. But regarding humanitarian catastrophes, other parts of the world are very busy as well. If you look at the HRI table, there are a lot of horrible places, and "we" don't as much talk about most of these.
Since no one else has noted it: they show rail lines and only rail. No roads on those maps. This includes some quite obscure ones like the railway between Labrador and Sept-Iles, Quebec. (It has almost no traffic and it serves a small town and a mine and it's not connected to the rest of the North American system.) Similarly they depict sections of rail in Canada that were out of service many years before this map was published. So they're quite out of date. To not show that Canada is linked by rail with the USA at Detroit is a definite oversight, too.
Seeing through the lens of railroads is probably an artifact of both ideology and the economic reality in North Korea. And maybe also the implicitly military purpose of these maps.
I thought that too, but the map for the UK is very weird - there is no direct connection between what looks like Birmingham and what looks like Manchester or anywhere in the North West of England. So, no West Coast Main Line? Instead they have the rail line veering off towards the peak district.
I don't know whether they're decades out of date or just plain wrong - the West Coast Main Line was "opened between 1837 and 1881" according to Wikipedia.
Also the UK seems to include the Grand Union canal and River Severn but not the River Thames. It seems quite random.
Hmm, if those red lines are meant to be rail lines than someone's definitely made some errors. E.g. the Europe map shows a red line in Iceland, perhaps between Reykjavík and Akureyri. But there's no railway between Reykjavík and Akureyri and in fact there's no rail in Iceland at all.
I just assumed the red lines were "major routes" of some sort, maybe rail, maybe roads.
> No roads on those maps. This includes some quite obscure ones like the railway between Labrador and Sept-Iles, Quebec.
I guess the maps are old, because they show the Newfoundland Railway, which was removed in the 80s.
At least the political maps are post-1992.
There's the San Bernardino Museum located at the train station in SB. Its next to the ATSF yards, so its sort of a combined SB and ATSF museum. On the wall there was a map of the US with all sorts of lines on it.
Under closer scrutiny, all of the lines were railroads, and not highways. In fact, (I don't think) there were no highways at all. And it was all railroads, not just ATSF. I don't recall the date on the map.
Just a fascinating "other view" of the world to look at the US through that lens.
You can look at https://openrailwaymap.org/ for an up-to-date rail-only map of the world.
Note it's infrastructure: lines may be freight-only, or only used occasionally.
https://www.xn--pnvkarte-m4a.de/ is an equivalent for public transport routes.
For Australia, at least, the rail lines are shown in red and major roads are shown in maroon. The lines for the roads are mostly thinner than for the rail, but not consistently so. At first glance, it's difficult to determine which lines are road and rail, unless you already know which is which.
Australian roads are also out of whack.
Then again, they could as well draw "here be dragons", it's not that anyone would ever actually do anything using these maps.
Yes,I noticed Kansas City is prominently featured on all the maps, which makes sense for rail hubs.
But strange, then, that the north/south line (Kansas City Southern / Canadian Pacific) is not there.
Doesn't have the Northern Transcon, either, which is an important rail link right along the Canadian border:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Transcon
The Northern Transcon is the northernmost route in the west:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BNSF_Railway_system_map.s...
> So they're quite out of date.
"More specifically, it is an electronic edition published on CD in the first decade of the 2000s"
So no telling when the data was actually gathered/acquired before being "frozen" for publication.
Also, if this is on something released to the NK public, then I'd imagine they are highly sanitized to make the rest of the world less impressive to those NK citizens that are allowed access to it. I'd strongly hope they provide their military better information, yet we know militaries are often lied to by their command.
You can examine their modern military maps; there's many of them (staged) in backgrounds of random KCNA photos. I.e. this "big board",
https://www.rferl.org/a/korea-evacuation-kim-/24951984.html
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/who-north-koreas-secretiv...
I don't know why one wouldn't expect their military to have modern cartography, in the internet era.
> To not show that Canada is linked by rail with the USA at Detroit is a definite oversight, too.
I don't think that was an oversight.
My grandfather built that railway in a supervisor capacity in Labrador. My dad was born in sept illes because of it. It was once very important but now a footnote. It moved iron ore in the 60s / 70s
My small-town public library growing up had a great resource that I did not appreciate at the time: an English translation of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia[0].
I really wish I had spent time with it. If nothing else it would have given me some questions to ask my history teachers.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Soviet_Encyclopedia
Anna has it in her archive
Where is the Josun Encyclopedia? I would like to read it. Thanks
Can't find an ISBN for it but Anna tells me she has something similar 1-56591-070-2
Wow! I would have been absolutely fascinated by this when I was a kid.
I remember once wandering around my college library and finding the book “The Soviet Economy Through the Year 2000.” This occurred during the current millennium.
My grandpa had the full 50-volume edition of the encyclopedia published in the 1950s. I spent a lot of time digging through it in my pre-teen years.
As a native Korean, every time I see something related to Korea, I am just amazed how much passion these people have. I briefly remember seeing a detailed map of the whole Korean peninsula from the elementary school, I think. I appreciate this finding!
North Korea is kind of invisible if you live in South Korea. You may see some news that they launched some rockets and did some military actions. People are so used to these news that they don't pay attention anymore. You forget about the North one and just live your life.
(I'm a South Korean.)
> According to the prevailing narrative in North Korea, the war was won by the communists and since then, the entire Korean peninsula has remained united under the rule of the Korean Workers’ Party.
This is either not true at all or the writer phrased strangely — both of the governments (South & North) recognize that the war is still on-going and they have an enemy that is controlling the other half of the peninsula that they do not control. However, both of the governments also argue that they are the only legal government that is ought to control the whole peninsula and does not recognize each other's legitimacy. For example, ROK(Republic of Korea, the government that controls the southern part of the peninsula)'s constitution writes that it's government governs the whole peninsula and it's islands. It's like how both PRC(People's Republic of China, i.e. China) and ROC(Republic of China, i.e. Taiwan) both argue that they are the only legal government over all of China (i.e. Mainland China and Taiwan combined).
> Therefore, when looking at the maps in this atlas, it should come as no surprise that Korea is always shown as one country, with no reference to the other country that exists at the southern tip of the peninsula.
It is universally agreed between the two governments (and their citizens) that a unification should happen at some point, so it is obvious that we should be using a map that covers the whole peninsula. We (as South Koreans) also learn 'our country' as the whole peninsula.
> This North Korean world map is centred on the Pacific Ocean, which gives Korea a privileged position on the global stage.
Not going to lie, sometimes it feels that some of the Westerners act like that they don't even think of the remote possibility that they might not be the center of the world…?
South Korean maps do this, China maps do this, Japanese maps do this, I'm pretty sure South East Asia countries also do this, it's a normal thing to do. There's nothing special about having the Pacific Ocean centered.
>> This North Korean world map is centred on the Pacific Ocean, which gives Korea a privileged position on the global stage.
> Not going to lie, sometimes it feels that some of the Westerners act like that they don't even think of the remote possibility that they might not be the center of the world…?
Westerner who also thought this was a strange comment and that the centering of the Korean peninsula was a totally natural decision for this atlas
> Not going to lie, sometimes it feels that some of the Westerners act like that they don't even think of the remote possibility that they might not be the center of the world…?
> South Korean maps do this, China maps do this, Japanese maps do this, I'm pretty sure South East Asia countries also do this, it's a normal thing to do. There's nothing special about having the Pacific Ocean centered.
Worth noting that florence meridian (11E) is somewhat special because centering map on it avoids cutting any major land masses. The best pacific option (148E) still needs to deal with greenland somehow. Of course Korea is quite off from 148E, so the map here ends up bit wonky (Greenland is duplicated, but Nunavut is not?).
The North has officially rejected unification, and regards South Korea as a separate, enemy country.
Not sure why this is downvoted. Kim Jong-un declared that reunification is no longer a goal in 2024 and tore down the Reunification Arch.
But that's only because the conservative government that took power in South Korea took a hardline anti-unification stance and instead decided to strengthen relations with the US.
The US has a rich history of undermining unification processes. Like in 2005 when Bush Jr broke promises related to light-water reactors and the 2005 agreement (where North Korea would stop nuclear development in exchange for a non-aggression pact and relief from sanctions).
Or in March 2017 when the U.S. has dismissed a joint China-North Korea proposal where North Korea would end its nuclear weapons development in exchange for the U.S. stopping its military maneuvers with South Korea
> It is universally agreed between the two governments (and their citizens) that a unification should happen at some point, so it is obvious that we should be using a map that covers the whole peninsula. We (as South Koreans) also learn 'our country' as the whole peninsula.
When I was growing up, I learned that too. But is it still true? I don't see any unification news or mention of it from media anymore. I don't think that schools still say or can say that to students. It didn't take me a long time after I got out of the public education system to realize what propaganda schools and media were selling.
Yes, that's complete nonsence.
My friend was on a guided tour to North Korea, and they aware of a lot of things. For example, the population of the North and the South was somehow accurately described to the tourists as 25 and 50 million, and they don't question that fact.
>It is universally agreed between the two governments (and their citizens) that a unification should happen at some point
South Koreans don't seriously believe this would ever be possible do they?
All Koreans hope for it to happen, especially those who aren't part of the very upper echelons of the DPRK. Just because folks live in DPRK and are bombarded with bullshit doesn't mean they aren't very well aware of what their realities are like when compared to that of the South.
Sneakernet is (was?) alive and well in DPRK and most of the population knows they're living nowhere near the levels that those in the South are. They just are fucking terrified of them and their families being killed by hard labor if they say otherwise.
So; sure; it's /possible/, but until something big changes, it won't happen. The only reason it's not actually happening is because of the humanitarian crisis it would create. No one wants to deal w/the fallout.
It wouldn't be just a humanitarian crisis but huge economical and social problem as well - suddenly this single country would be enlarged by ~26mln people who would need to be adjusted to life in a completely different reality, and who also would need to be secured in variety of ways.
The comparison to German unification that's often bring up seems to be accurate only on the surface. There are large differences like mainly the cult of personality created by the Kim family that affects life of people in NK. It's not possible to dismantle that day by day, and surely government which would had to deal with unification would also face resistance to some degree. This society has been for over 70 years conditioned to hate, looking for the causes of their own misfortune outside in the pure evil that USA in their eyes is and its puppet state of SK.
It won't be a 0-1 change where on Monday you attend annual parade where you worship Eternal President and Dear Leader, and by Tuesday you plan your first vacations on Jeju island.
Moreover, the situation in the end of 80s in Europe is the key factor - namely the domino effect started in Poland which spread across the whole eastern bloc. There was a strong opposition building up within societies of Central-Eastern Europe demanding changes and freedom. Pretty sure that's nearly non existent in NK - there's no trigger for large changes. Even the famine in the mid-90s wasn't enough.
I don't think much of anyone thinks unification is actually possible absent some big change, and indeed neither government is truly pursuing it actively (unless "trying to destabilize and make the other government collapse" qualifies). But both are trying to be as ready as possible for unification when the opportunity presents itself (most likely, it would happen in a way alike to German reunification - that is, the government of one of the two countries becomes quite compatible with the other, because the previous form of government in it collapsed and was replaced by that of its neighbor)
Nothing lasts forever, and change is an inevitable fact of life on a sufficient time scale.
I mean, see Germany.
North Korea has map centered on North Korea.
Discussion is about how Westerners are self-centered.
OK.
At least for Japan, South Korea and China we all draw our map centered to Pacific Ocean instead of Atlantic Ocean. It is very normal practice, unless the author of this article is so Eurocentrism that they think it is an arrogation for anyone other than Europe to put them in the center.
( I lived in South Korea, and I read Korean rather well, and have traveled very extensively in South Korea. I have seen North Korean across the borders from 4 sites. )
The prevailing narrative in North Korea is utter propaganda: You cannot win a war that is still not over.
Korea should reunite as some point, when the North has a moderate leader or falls like East Germany. Until then all the wishful thinking of a deranged leader in the North, will amount to cold, cold air. The North Koreans starved millions of their own citizens. Millions, and continue to do so.
"Government Policies: The state's rigid public distribution system failed, disproportionately affecting the urban population and rural areas, while prioritizing food for the military and political elite. The government was slow to seek international aid and restricted the access of foreign relief agencies, diverting much of the aid that did arrive. "
Westerners who are not traveled, do believe themselves to be the center of the universe, its why they are almost universally known as 'Ugly Americans.' Loads of those in South Korea.
An honest map of korea would be east west centered on the China sea, looking over the plains, and with the mountains at the top... ( I am getting emotional now at the thought of the mountains... so incredibly beautiful, and... amazingly clean. ) My wish for Korean Unification is to see the Golden Mountain. (金剛山), and for the long separated families to see each other.
Rotate all these maps 90 degrees counter clockwise.
The best hope for unification for Korea... was laid out by Sec Hillary Clinton, who before she became Secretary of state, basically reiterated verbatim one of the most well thought out assessments of unification I have ever heard. Since she is not exactly a professor of Far East Studies, someone in the State Department must have written it for her, someone who had been studying it for decades, like I have.
Can you provide more details on the early statement by Sec Hillary Clinton? I've been unable to narrow down which communication you are referring to.
On the map of Europe, Poland has a strange nonexistent river flowing through it. It enters the Baltic Sea more or less where the Vistula river really does. But going south it mysteriously veers east into Belarus.
I know sometimes cartographers leave nonexistent landmarks on their maps to catch plagiarists blindly copying them. Not sure if that's something similar here.
Could also be a method of identifying information leaks. Leave unique imaginary landmarks on different prints associated with certain people or groups of people that received that print.
Or just wrong info. Who knows.
You're right that this happens. However, if I had to guess I would say that it's due to bad information / intel.
North Korea is a closed country with limited access to information (think before the internet). On the flip side, I don't think catching copyright violators would be high on the list of concerns of the people making these maps.
Despite its age, this encyclopedia is an amazing window into North Korea - or, at least how its government saw it. I love niche media like this.
But what I'm itching for most is to see the contents of the entire CD, rather than just a few chosen excerpts. The entire encyclopedia, all the maps, anything else that may be hidden on there. I wish the author made this find open for all to see.
The North Korean place names for foreign places reflect the native pronunciations, while South Korean place names reflect English pronunciation. Syria is "suria" vs "siria" for example.
An aside, but I cannot over emphasize enough my aggravation with mobile sites that lock pinch to zoom. I cannot fathom why you would ever want this.
The Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh (which China claims as "South Tibet") is not shown as a part of India in the Indian map, as a hat tip to their political masters the PRC. And the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir is also shown as, I imagine, "disputed" with a dotted line.
Would you say India are their political masters if it was shown as being Indian? Even Google Maps in the US has dotted borders alongside both sides to show its disputed.
Historically, geographically, culturally, the area was always part of Tibet. It was the British that drew the McMahon Line and claimed it was part of India. China never once recognized the line. When Mao won the civil war in China they went on to conquer Tibet and again considered the whole of Tibet theirs.
India's claims to the area rest solely on the british-drawn lines. In reality, the whole of Tibet should be Tibet and allowed to either self-govern or choose which nation they should be a part of
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it disputed, with heavy border tensions and all? I'm not claiming India doesn't control it, and as a Swede I don't know much. But that's about the one thing I thought I knew about Kashmir.
Yes, heavily disputed, to the point that there are widespread campaigns on the internet to normalize the various sovereignty claims under the guise of day-to-day conversation about those locales (e.g. conspicuously referring to them as being "in India" or "in Pakistan" or "in China"). For example, see the Google maps reviews for any landmarks in the area.
What's the source of the particular singling out of Israel here? Is it because they're a US ally, or is there some other history between the countries?
It looks like a singular designation in their atlas that Israel is referred to not as an enemy, but as "nonexistent." Anti-Israeli sentiment certainly creates strange bedfellows.
I looked into it a bit (another commenter called it "not that complicated" which is not a phrase I usually hear in relation to Israeli/Palestinian politics!) and it's pretty interesting: https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-curious-tale-of-israels-sh... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93North_Korea_rel...
Apparently at times some in Israel worked to establish relations with NK, in hopes of improving economic ties & bringing them in the fold I guess, but their efforts were thwarted by others in Israel (intelligence services) and pressure from the USA. And eventually (according to the article) it became clear that "stop selling our enemies weapons to use on us & in return we'll invest and establish ties" was a non-starter, so they gave up.
Also in an interesting reversal of tropes common in US politics, it sounds like the Isaeli government felt they were being unfairly controlled by the US, by being prevented from trying to establish friendly relations with a country the US considered off limits.
It's interesting to think of the counterfactual where Israel invested in NK, NK stopped participating in or arming attacks on Israel, and who knows what else would have happened. Oh well!
I think the Soviet Union had sided with Palestine (and also with other countries in what today is called the Global South) for most of the cold war, and this is a remnant of that.
Another effect of that is that a number of ex-soviet republics, like Poland, have recognition of Palestine "grandfathered in" even if they're part of the West and generally pro-Israel today.
Stalin sided with Israel against "those British sellouts Arabs". After his death USSR flipped for weird commie reasons, then felt betrayed by Nasser, then got disappointed by poor Arab fighting, then fell apart.
Much of the Arab World and its allies consider all of "historical Palestine" to be one nation called Palestine with a significant part of it being under occupation by a (Western) colony. This is a pretty common pattern that is not at all unique to North Korea
It's anti-imperialism. It's not that complicated.
There's many Israelis who will also claim that Palestine does not exist.
It's colonization, and war. Israelis claim the land. Palestinians also claim the land.
NK is united with Palestine via their anti-imperialist stance.
There are many other countries that also do not recognize Israel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_I...
To be an Empire, wouldn't Israel need to defacto control _some territory_ and then be trying to expand their empire into Palestine? Or is the idea that the US is the Empire?
There is another `anti-` that I would use here instead.
> To be an Empire, wouldn't Israel need to defacto control _some territory_ and then be trying to expand their empire into Palestine?
To be an Empire in the narrow sense they would have to have a polity that is the metropolitan power and then exert control over some external territory that is distinct from the metropole, and has different rules applied to it, either through direct administration or control of the local administration. Ignoring the disputes over what exactly the meaningful status of Gaza is, the open occupation of the West Bank would seem to qualify.
Though, yes, it is definitely true that lots of people who see Israel as a facet of imperialism hold to a view where there is a single globe-spanning Empire of which the US is the metropole and Israel is simply one of the tentacles. (These people also have elaborate arguments as to why entities that might seem to meet every aspect of the definition of Empire even more than Israel-as-metropole does, particularly modern Russia, are not imperialist powers that amount to “it's only Imperialism if it comes from the US region of North America, otherwise its just sparkling international influence.”)
> These people also have elaborate arguments as to why entities that might seem to meet every aspect of the definition of Empire even more than Israel-as-metropole does, particularly modern Russia, are not imperialist powers that amount to “it's only Imperialism if it comes from the US region of North America, otherwise its just sparkling international influence.
I think this last part does disservice to the rest of your argument. It's not "the same people", it's a subset. There are people capable of holding the view that all of those are examples of modern imperialism.
Also, some of us in Latin America have a reasonable justification for animosity against the US rather than against other (also imperialist) actors: we are "America's back yard" and they have been involved in toppling, undermining, threatening or supporting our governments as they see fit. The US' relative influence far outstrips all others. Russia, China, etc, while nonzero are comparatively far lesser influence factors and therefore are downplayed in our perception of the world.
> > These people also have elaborate arguments as to why entities that might seem to meet every aspect of the definition of Empire even more than Israel-as-metropole does, particularly modern Russia, are not imperialist powers that amount to “it's only Imperialism if it comes from the US region of North America, otherwise its just sparkling international influence.
> I think this last part does disservice to the rest of your argument. It's not "the same people", it's a subset. There are people capable of holding the view that all of those are examples of modern imperialism.
I think you need to go back and reread the sentence immediately preceding the one you excerpted which provides the reference for these people, because no, the group referenced there absolutely does not include people who hold “the view that all of those are examples of modern imperialism”. For reference, that sentence is: “Though, yes, it is definitely true that lots of people who see Israel as a facet of imperialism hold to a view where there is a single globe-spanning Empire of which the US is the metropole and Israel is simply one of the tentacles.”
People who view that there are multiple imperial powers are not part of the group I am referring to in that sentence and the one you excerpted which follows it.
> Also, some of us in Latin America have a reasonable justification for animosity against the US rather than against other (also imperialist) actors
Lots of people lots of places have a reasonable justification for greater animosity toward the US, yes, but that has nothing one way or the other to do with anything I said.
> To be an Empire, wouldn't Israel need to defacto control _some territory_ and then be trying to expand their empire into Palestine?
They very openly do both those things in the West Bank.
Then you have the more extreme settler types talking about the biblical "Land of Israel" that would extend into modern Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.
But as far as I understand it, Israel is usually not the empire itself, but a bridgehead or particularly glaring example of imperialism from the West, starting with the British Empire.
> Or is the idea that the US is the Empire?
So, yes.
It were those countries that conquered those regions from the Ottoman empire and then decided among themselves to support the project of a Jewish state, against the wishes of the existing population of the region.
The whole reason Gaza (was) the most densely populated place on Earth was because its full of refugees that got pushed out by israel's violent expansion. Sometimes Palestinian's homes weren't even destroyed but simply kept by Israeli settlers. There's a common picture of a middle aged Palestinian in front of a house that just 30-50 years ago was there's but is now occupied by an israeli
anti-imperialist here refers to the American empire, which Israel is a tool of (and the U.S. serves Israel also, there is a symbiotic relationship).
> and then be trying to expand their empire into Palestine?
Not related to the above point, but this is happening in the West Bank anyway.
> There is another `anti-` that I would use here instead.
I doubt North Korea is doing this from a principled position of anti-Zionism
> According to the prevailing narrative in North Korea, the war was won by the communists and since then, the entire Korean peninsula has remained united under the rule of the Korean Workers’ Party.
(Emphasis mine)
TIL. Now I'm really curious how maintaining this fiction works (or doesn't) in practice.
Is the second part actually true though? I can't find any sources about this, in fact the opposite seems to be true. North Korea recently changed their constitution and describe South Korea as a "hostile state" which means they officially recognize it as a "state" at least[1]. Before that they explicitly had a goal for unification in the constitution which implies (or can be implied) that there never was such a view that "the entire Korean peninsula has remained united under the rule of the Korean Workers’ Party". There is also this sentence:
>This North Korean world map is centred on the Pacific Ocean, which gives Korea a privileged position on the global stage
This is normal for asian maps, Japan does the same thing for example.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-korea-repor...
Yeah, I'm kindof skeptical. Another example I found was Kim referencing the south in a TV speech. I think their official position might be something closer to that the war was victorious by virtue of holding off the Americans and/or removing them from the area. Then the atlas doesn't show the south as a separate country because it's more of a Taiwan situation where they don't want to legitimize it as anything more than a rebellious province? At least in the early 2000s when this atlas was made. The language at the time definitely seems to emphasize that the whole peninsula is just "the nation": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_15th_North%E2%80%93South_...
>> This North Korean world map is centred on the Pacific Ocean, which gives Korea a privileged position on the global stage
> This is normal for asian maps, Japan does the same thing for example.
This is common in Australia too.
So you're saying North Korea, Japan and Australia are engaged in a leftist plot to take a privileged position in the world?
All we need is some TikTok, YouTube shorts and some gullible right wingers, and I think we've got ourselves a product!
As a map of Australia sure but not a world map
The second search result for "Australian world map" shows a world map that is designed for Australian schools and it centers on Pacific Ocean:
https://www.australianteachingaids.com.au/the-world-map
The first search result for "Australian world map" was for one of those novelty south-side up maps.
I'm also curious given the rhetoric that the North Korean media has about the "puppet" state in the south. I can understand that the North Koreans want to claim sovereignty over the whole peninsula, but the article makes it sound like North Korea pretends that the ROK does not exist.
This is easy to resolve: North Korea doesn't believe it has control over the South. The article is simply wrong, a variant of the trope of "those crazy North Koreans believe all sorts of things".
They believe there's only one Korea, artificially split in two by their enemies, and that it should all be under the control of the current NK government, but they don't believe they control all of it now.
Isn't it widely known everywhere in the world that SK is a total puppet government of the USA?
I mean, see American politics for a similar example.
The Epstein files are simultaneously a "Democrat hoax" and full of prominent Dems. The Attorney General both has them on her desk, and they don't exist.
And there's not enough in them to charge or investigate any 3rd parties, until some are made public and now there's enough to investigate Democrats.
And suddenly the unimportant records that don't exist but were also a hoax but also implicate the-other-guy are about to be made public... suddenly an "ongoing investigation" is the new excuse.
> The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between the true and the false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.
-- The origins of Totalitarianism (1951), by Hannah Arendt
Clearly, we were thinking the same thing or along the same lines.
> TIL. Now I'm really curious how maintaining this fiction works (or doesn't) in practice.
Very easily. There's an official account, which 'everyone'[1] knows is bullshit, but if you try to assert any logical consequences of it, you will immediately out yourself as a malcontent, and will get into serious trouble. (Because despite having all sorts of constitutional protections for your rights on paper, the executive has the power in practice to do anything it wants to you at any time, with no redress. Good luck exercising articles 67 through 79 of that constitution. If you're lucky, you'll be softly told to sit down and shut up. If you're unlucky, you'll be doing a few years in a camp.)
It's the time-tested playbook that every authoritarian regime follows, and if you're interested in learning more about how it works in practice, just turn on Fox News. It's got the first half of the double-think process down, and is working hard on getting us to the second half.
There is always a thin public justification for why rights don't apply to the enemies of the state, which is enough to convince ~half the country. (Because ~half of any country will happily accept whatever atrocities its leaders do. You can observe that sort of thing on this very forum.)
---
[1] Not actually everyone, some people really are that fucking stupid, but most know there's something off[2] about it.
[2] In this particular case, the official Atlas says they are one country, but the country's Constitution (updated last year on this very subject) says that the ROK is a foreign, hostile state. Anyone who can read or has eyes to see and ears to hear should easily be able to tell that the latter is the more accurate one.
> You can observe that sort of thing on this very forum.
remember that 1) this forum skews to a very specific sort of person, and 2) that person notwithstanding, there is an incredible, shocking large amount of bots active here, owing to the fact that the people from 1) are also AI worshipping futurists (and/or techno-fascists)
Hi !
I am not a AI worshiping futurist nor a (techno-)fascist for that matter. I don't think bots are that active on such a small platform but I guess by "bots" you mean people who offer pushback on your opinions (they are a "shocking" number indeed, it seems I can hardly convince more than one person to rally my positions from time to time and I still have to pretend to be nuanced !)
I also believe that "platform is skewed against X" (generally your own opinions) are utterly useless comments. You are just pretending everyone is against you so you don't have to take criticism addressed to you seriously.
Now you can enjoy the ego boost of feeling like the virtuous online warrior against a world of techno-fascists that are ganging up on you or you can reflect and try to take into account the fact that people have different viewpoints and are mostly doing their best. I eventually chose the latter and I have to say I feel less grandiose but much better overall. Join the club, we have cookies.
The book 1984 demonstrates how logical inconsistencies can exist and be believed in when you don't have much choice.
It's a book, not a demonstration.
In any case, North Koreans are not taught that South Korea is just like any other part of North Korea. The idea that the North Korean people and leadership are all buffoons who make the weirdest of lies possible is already Orwellian enough.
Well they do don't they? I read a couple of books about life in the soviet union. 1984 is satire, but it's not so far off from what reality was.
And can in fact be a useful test of loyalty.
said loyalty tests become a purity spiral, e.g. who can clap the loudest or cry the most for Dear Leader
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_spiral
By Vectron's claw!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icTrzUuWlHI
I wish there was a CD rip of the encyclopedia available so I could comb through the rest.
Interestingly North Macedonia is also colored with the gray shade of the enemies. Wondering if that is deliberate or not.
> According to the prevalent narrative in North Korea, the war was won by the communists.
Well - it depends on how one wants to call the result of the war.
I think there was not necessarily a winner; there was a stalemate/truce, with China guaranteeing North Korea to not lose, but not necessarily win either. That does not mean North Korea won, but I don't think one can necessarily say that they lost the war either.
I am fully aware of how the propaganda in North Korea works, but some articles are also heavily biased. The biggest danger to North Korea actually comes from the success model in South Korea, as well as the internet. The internet kind of nerfed Scientology (see what Ron Miscavige said and described how Scientology changed over the years, so if one of the big guys can quit, the whole business model they established decades ago, is dead and decaying). Sooner or later Kim Jong Fat will also lose out to the internet. You can not permanently cut off million of people, with the assumption they won't be able to understand how strategic lies work. It also does not work in Russia either, though Russia is of course nowhere near as isolated as North Korea right now.
> Sooner or later Kim Jong Fat will also lose out to the internet.
North Koreans do not have any Internet, save for through computers at a few government-controlled and strictly monitored libraries, as well as through illegal imported Chinese smartphones if they live near the border.
> I think there was not necessarily a winner; there was a stalemate/truce
Well yeah, basically everyone agrees on that. Everyone who's not insane anyway.
Like, North Korea invaded and made it really far, UN (mostly US) forces pushed them way the hell back, then China helped NK push that offensive back, and they ended up settling real close to the original dividing line. Pretty obvious draw as far as wars go I think.
> According to the prevalent narrative in North Korea, the war was won by the communists.
According to the North Korean govt, the Korean war was started by the South who wanted to invade North (it was not, based on extensive studies). Therefore in their view (or at least from their propaganda), the communists "won" by successfully defending their part of the peninsula.
None of what you are saying holds water. Scientology’s old business model became less effective, but the cult segued into a real-estate empire and still has several mega-wealthy members (so-called “whales”) it can milk for donations.
And North Korea could see greater internet uptake but still remain a stable dictatorship, precisely on the model of Russia where, even if the population “sees through the lies”, that doesn’t challenge the regime itself; people who dislike the regime largely simply accept it as a fact of life, and might even disapprove of those people who make the effort to challenge it.
While looking at Google Maps’ satellite view of North Korea, I noticed something unusual in several areas:
https://www.google.com/maps/@39.8416379,124.6971993,599m/dat...
https://www.google.com/maps/@39.7064561,124.9519379,871m/dat...
https://www.google.com/maps/@39.7917888,127.4197521,1723m/da...
Much of the landscape is divided into rectangular parcels, almost like a factorio layout, or something from sim city 3000, rather than natural terrain. Does anyone know the reason for this pattern?
Large scale collective farming I guess. The US' farmland in the central states was also organized by a centralized process (homestead act) leading to similar geographic patterns on a bigger scale. https://maps.app.goo.gl/idNBdXv5oKSF1oVo7
Looks like farm land. Perhaps the land was assigned to individual in small pieces, and the individual get a portion of the harvest.
> the war was won by the communists and since then, the entire Korean peninsula has remained united under the rule of the Korean Workers’ Party.
This makes me wonder what the reasoning is, or even if they officially do, for preventing North Korean citizens from migrating south? If it's all united as one country then why would someone be prevented from moving there?
From what I understand about North Korea - simply moving within (actual) NK itself is not really on the cards for a lot of people, so they might as well claim sovereignty over the whole peninsular.
Yeah, my initial thought was something along the lines of all actions are subject to the approval of the party.
I'd presume it's like the Soviets, where moving cities required permission.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propiska_in_the_Soviet_Union
It's more than that, it's probably a ideological thing from the very top. Just like how the PRC insists that Taiwan is just another weird territory like HK or Macau.
Id think this being the 'official' political position , it would be referring to the end of hostilities when the armistice was signed.Legally there was no ceasefire/capitulation etc and i would suggest as far as the North are concerned barring outside interference they would have prevailed. Hence the stressing of the position that they are one entity 'politically' - certainly not that 'physically' they are one untit , also why they would hold/reunification talks from time to time and family relatives exchanges between the two.
They are cognizant that there is a DMZ , and that theere exists a polity on the south that keeps sending usb filled baloons , propaganda loudspeakes blaring on the Border. So mostly a poltical position being staked out , which is also why the maps only have Palestine and Western Sahara.Not because they are unaware of the situation insitu but geopilitically they are staking their claims.
I found this interesting too:
> In the one [map] for Jordan, it is also clarified that Palestine is a territory under Israeli occupation.
Isn't it great that the west is slowly catching up to North Korea.
That’s true. Technically, they’re still at war so it could be something to the effect of, “don’t go down there where the war is”.
I'm wondering what the infrastructure shown in red on the maps is. Railways? Roads? It's obviously very rough, whatever it is. I'm looking at the UK and it looks like Ipswich and Great Yarmouth (or Lowestoft) or on there, but not Norwich. It's interesting to see what is considered significant or strategic from their point of view.
Another interesting one is The Great Soviet Encyclopedia: https://bse.sci-lib.com/
From every account I’ve read, North Koreans suffer greatly, maybe not holocaust level but we’re totally fine to allow their suffering to continue unabated. If I was a North Korean I’d hope someone was coming to help me at some stage . Weird situation .
> we’re totally fine to allow their suffering to continue unabated
People aren't "fine" with it exactly, it's just that the alternative usually looks (potentially) much worse.
Regime change would mean war with North Korea, and at the very least that'd be a ton of artillery shells landing on Seoul and killing a ton of civilians at the outset of the war.
North Korea by itself would obviously be much weaker than a presumed SK+US force, but then you have to worry about China potentially getting drawn in, and now you have two nuclear superpowers fighting each other in all-out war. Nobody really wants that.
In the late Soviet Union, there was a joke: "We should declare war on Japan and immediately surrender."
"We" are absolutely not fine with the state of things there, but there is also not much to do for these poor people, aside from some non-political volunteer help. One of the reasons is the that, as I understand it, China and NK are diplomatically close, with them having a mutual defense treaty among other things. So if you meddle in NK, you also meddle with China, and "we" don't exactly meddle with China either, even in face of their most condemned actions like the treatment of Uighur, since they are a superpower.
Another thing is that NK is very highly publicized in Western media, and people seem to have a kind of fascination with it. But regarding humanitarian catastrophes, other parts of the world are very busy as well. If you look at the HRI table, there are a lot of horrible places, and "we" don't as much talk about most of these.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-rights-index-vdem?t...
You'd sure be hoping that, while gripping your Type 58 and eyeing the border vigilantly.